The Oral Archive as a Form of Dance Archive

Abstract

Oral archives are important components of dance archives but are not frequently discussed. In this context I am looking at the George Balanchine Foundation's Interpreters Archive and Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker's and Bojana Cvejić’s publication entitled The Choreographer's Score, the latter as basis for a possible archive. The oral descriptions provided in those projects transmit a form of knowledge about dance and choreographic practice that cannot be offered through physical demonstration and haptic exchanges of body postures and movement qualities alone. The oral transmission of information works here differently from written discourses, but both forms of documentation of dance can be seen as informing each other, providing traces of the choreographic practice that counteract the ephemerality of dance performances.